In marriage, like in horror movies, rituals are important.
Dave Franco and Alison Brie, partners in work and life, have been on the road for months preparing for this weekend’s release of their co-dependent body horror flick “Together.” The highest seller at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, the project has made waves for its terrifying advance marketing – all merging flesh, crushed bones and other invisible forces proving that Franco and Brie’s fictional couple have bigger problems than who did or did not lower the toilet seat.
Off-screen, their own rituals have been sweeter. Variety asked the pair to reflect on their 2017 Los Angeles wedding, an intimate affair gleefully devoid of the horrors of “Together” (unless you count an uninvited guest showing up). Here, they discuss a confusing but endearing proposal, a simple (non-occult) ceremony and a party that still nets them compliments 8 years later.
Dave, what do you remember about popping the question?
Dave Franco: We were going to Big Sur, one of our favorite places on Earth. I decided I was going to do it there. And I didn’t have the ring.
Alison Brie: He knew that I wanted our friend Irene Neuwirth to design my ring.
DF: The day before the trip, I figured I should have a placeholder ring so I could at least put something on her finger. I went to an antiques store down the street from us and got what I thought was a cool, old ring. We first met at Mardi Gras in New Orleans years ago, and Alison had this silver mask on her head the entire weekend. I had written my phone number on the mask, and at the end of the trip, I took it and hid it. She didn’t know I’d kept the mask all these years.
AB: So, we’re in Big Sur. He calls me out onto the patio. I turn around and Dave’s on one knee in a Zorro mask, holding a weird box with an old rock in it. I had no idea what was going on.
DF: I spent the entire proposal explaining why it was so sweet that I kept the mask, [with] her still not understanding what this stupid mask was. She looked at me and said, “Are you serious right now?” I finally had to tell her, “Don’t worry. Irene will make your ring.” Then she said yes. The mask is hanging in our kitchen with a photo from the first night we met.
I think the thing you can always count on with weddings is that something will go wrong, and usually the bride and groom are the only ones who know.
AB: We did the ceremony at home on the balcony, with just our parents and our siblings.
DF: After, we threw a party at [Chef Nancy Silverton’s beloved L.A. restaurant] Pizzeria Mozza for 60 of our friends.
AB: I remember that one of your friends who had RSVP’d without a plus one did bring a plus one. This was a highly curated situation. We found out the night before the wedding, having drinks with people in town, that this guy’s new girlfriend was coming. Our friend [and wedding planner] Annie Campbell told me to go to bed and not worry about it,
I think the rule is, “No ring? No bring.”
DF: Wow. That’s a good call. But we wanted people to let loose and go crazy. Much more than they did. We were handing out weed pens, which just led to everyone bringing home multiple to-go pizzas.
AB: That was our parting gift. Personal pizzas.
DF: Neither of us were ever big into weddings. Like, this was not a super important thing to us. At the end of the day, we did it exactly how we wanted. In a cheesy way, that ended up being one of the best days of our lives.
Are you thinking about your next collaboration, or are you craving time apart?
AB: We actually both just completed scripts that we wrote separately. Dave wrote a thriller on his own, and I have a new horror comedy script that I wrote with my friend Alice Stanley Jr..
DF: We’ll be producers on one another’s projects. That way, we don’t burn people out.
“Together” is currently in theaters nationwide.